In honor of the exorbitantly important elimination tomorrow – you know, the one that will essentially determine what sort of country America will come to be known as in the near future – DANCING WITH THE STARS is foregoing their own elimination this week. Instead, we'll be treated to a double-elimination next week.

Are you maniacally twiddling your fingers as I am?

So, anyway, instead we're left with a single night of DANCING WITH THE STARS: ALL STARS, aptly labeled "Fusion Week." And wouldn't you know, everything became a whole lot more clear when it was labeled as such. DANCING is like a big ol' fusion of bad TV and decent TV: the costuming from TODDLERS and TIARAS, the financial aspirations of AMERICAN IDOL, and the casts from those old sitcoms that your grandma used to make you sit through and the whole time you kept begging her to turn it off but all she wanted to do was iron and watch Kirstie Alley on VERONICA'S CLOSET. You know, those sitcoms that now only exist on the VHS tapes in your basement or on TV Land.

So 'Fusion Week' actually attempted to meld multiple dance styles into a single song, and, for the most part, it went pretty well. The competitors also took part in a swing dance marathon, unfortunately. Melissa Rycroft and Tony Dovolani outlasted the others in the judges' eyes, and they were awarded the extra 10 points. Check out the scores below:

Following this week's round of performances, it appears Johnson (whose normal partner, Derek Hough, may or may not be sidelined for the duration of the season following his injury last week) has the potential to become the dark horse, capable of keeping what she's got (her technique) and build upon what she may not always have perfect (her presence) and winning the whole shabang. Alley is once again trailing at the tail end of the leaderboard, while the injured Melissa Rycroft, points-wise, took the night.

But alas, no elimination this week. So, rather than pine for having your right to vote for who will remain on DANCING taken away, head out and exercise your other voting right tomorrow.

Oh, and the cast of NEWSIES is performing on next week's results show, so if the elimination ends up as ridiculous as last week's, there's always that.

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About Author

Tyler is one of BroadwayWorld's lead News Desk Editors, covering breaking Broadway and theatre news daily. He received a pair of BAs in Public Relations and Creative Writing from Loyola University Chicago, while working part-time for BWW on evenings, weekends, and occasionally during classes. He has also been involved in the Chicago theatre industry, working in media relations and publicity with Margie Korshak, Inc.